Sunlight illuminates empty church pews and vibrant stained glass windows. — **Frontispiece** The meeting house, weekday morning. The building has been in use since 1847 and the pews are the originals.

Craftsbury Common, Vermont

Providence Chapel

A congregation of ordinary people, gathered around the Word, since 1847.

What happens on a Sunday Listen to a sermon

Reformed Baptist · Established 1847 · Meeting weekly ever since

This Lord’s DayWhen we meet

The Lord’s Supper is kept on the first Sunday of the month, and the table is open to any Christian, whatever church they belong to.

Hymns for the coming Lord’s Day

Sunday

Numbers are from our hymnal. Metres are given so a visiting musician can pick a tune everyone knows.

Ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.

Jeremiah 6:16

Audience seated in a church during a service. — **Plate I** Congregational singing, accompanied by a piano and — on a good week — a cello. No screens, no band, and a great many people who cannot sing, singing anyway.

A leather-bound book displays hymn "it is well." — **Plate II** Everyone sings from the same book, which means everyone can see where the tune is going — and a visitor who cannot read music still has the words.

In one paragraphWhat this church is

Providence Chapel is a Reformed Baptist congregation of about a hundred and forty people in a village of a little over a thousand. We have met in the same timber-frame meeting house since 1847.

We preach straight through books of the Bible, we sing from a hymnal, we baptise believers, and we make decisions together at a members’ meeting rather than in a back room. Nothing about a Sunday here is designed to impress you, which is what most of our visitors say they liked about it.

What actually happens on a Sunday

Why it is like thisPlainly put

Hebrews 10:24-25

We meet in one place, weekly

A church is a particular set of people who have committed themselves to one another somewhere, not an audience for a broadcast. There is no satellite campus and there is no app, and there are not going to be.

Nehemiah 8:8

We preach the book in order

Straight through, chapter by chapter, including the parts nobody would choose. Two years in Mark so far. It means the hard passages get preached in their turn rather than quietly skipped for something more comfortable.

Colossians 3:16

The congregation is the choir

Everyone sings, from the same numbered book, accompanied by a piano. Nobody performs at us. It is not always beautiful and that has never been the point.

The members decide

The elders lead and teach, the deacons look after money and mercy, but the budget, the calling of a pastor and the receiving of members are settled by a show of hands four times a year. Slower, and worth it.